Buying prints that are larger than the original illustration

March 28, 2020 8:58 AM

I would like to buy prints of the bird illustrations from the board game 'Wingspan'. The artists are selling these online in a variety of sizes. Is there any downside to opting for the largest size prints, which seem to be significantly larger than the original colour pencil illustrations?

The prints come in three sizes - 5 x 7, 8 x 10, and 11 x 14 inches. The website indicates that the original colour pencil illustrations are generally around 9 x 6 inches. E.g. see the original illustration for the mourning dove, versus the print . I'd love to buy a couple of prints in the largest size, but am wary of the potential downsides - the most obvious being loss of sharpness, or perhaps the pencil strokes just looking weird when they're enlarged beyond their original scale. Should I just stick to the size that most closely approximates the original?

I know nothing about colour pencil illustrations or printing, and have never bought prints online before. But I have a particular soft spot for the ruddy duck (a Wingspan card which is worth zero points) and would really like to have a print of one (among others!) on my dining room wall.

posted by yours in calendrical heresy to Shopping (3 answers total)

Best answer: Assuming the originals were scanned at a sufficiently high resolution (and the description says they were) then they will be fine at that size. I'd order without hesitation, and I did fine art reproduction for a living. You'll love them.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:35 AM on March 28, 2020 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Agreed with seanmpuckett...size doesn’t matter if it was scanned at high enough dpi, which I trust the illustrator did to be able to sell larger prints with confidence. I’m an artist who frequently draws smaller than 5”x5”, but I can scan at like 600 dpi so I can print much larger with compromising image quality. For art, scanning at 300 dpi is like a direct one for one that lets you print at actual size, higher dpi scans let you print larger.
posted by sprezzy at 10:04 AM on March 28, 2020

I have 2 digital paintings I made as 8x10 at 300 dpi which I had printed at 20x24 and they look great.
posted by Crystalinne at 3:08 PM on March 28, 2020